Who are you?

October 6, 2008 - 9:05 AM by

magen-david.jpgOne of the reasons my wife and I moved to Israel many years ago, was so that our children would grow up in a Jewish environment and help build the Jewish state.
It’s quite a surprise 20-odd years later (and I mean odd), that we’ve instead raised a brood of Israelis.

Sure they’re Jewish, and the chances that they’ll marry Jews is pretty darn high compared to their chances of even meeting a Jew in New England, but I think that they would identify themselves as ‘Israeli’ before they would ‘Jewish’ – just like many American Jews would call themselves ‘American’ before ‘Jewish’.

Of course, in Israel, it’s almost impossible to separate Jewishness and Israeliness. The national holidays are Jewish ones, the national institutions are all kosher – even when secular grade school kids learn grammar, the examples might be well-known Biblical verse. But as those elements become part of you and second nature – especially if you’ve grown up like that since birth – it just becomes another part of being Israeli.

They willingly go to the army, pay taxes, hike the trails, and listen to Asaf Avidan, but not because they feel a sense of redemption of Israel rising from the ashes of the Holocaust, or the homecoming after 2,000 years of Jewish exile. They do it because it’s their Israeli culture. Sure, they’re patriotic about their country, but only as they would be about any country they were born in and grew up in.

But, is that enough? What’s to keep a young Israeli here – with high taxes, miluim, security threats as a constant way of life? The superior quality of the coffee at the cafes and the nightlife in Tel Aviv? That may work for a while, but unless there’s that historical, religious underpinning.

My challenge for the new year is to do a better job than I’ve done at nstilling that feeling in my children that there’s a special mission and privilege of living here – and that, in the end, you can’t really separate Jewish and Israeli.

Tags: , , , , , , , • Category: General, Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Religion 

Comments

8 Comments on Who are you?

  1. lirun on Mon, Oct 6th 2008 5:03 PM

    2. sounds like u have heard about the well over a million non-jews that are legally just as israeli as your children

  2. David-Joe on Tue, Oct 7th 2008 2:57 AM

    3. As an Israeli that has floated around the world for over twenty years now but has spent the past 13 years in NYC [returning for good to Israel in the next 2 years], there is a difference in the entire world today for all nations.

    The dominant intellectuals of the day are tragically leftists of the liberal breed. For them it is not country or ideology that drives them, but a mystical collectivist humanity.

    This means that relativism, multiculturalism and a subjective view of reality leading to an emotionalistic dogma of you will.

    No longer in America is patriotism and understanding the uniqueness of the US Constitution taught or accepted. And even the Democrat candidate now running for president does not genertally wear the flag or accept American values.

    This in Israeli terms is the loss of Zionism – the ideology that is the concrete outcome of Judaism – remember Judaism was only rabbinical when the 2nd Temple was destroyed.

    It is okay to call oneself “Israeli” but what Jewish Israelis and non-Jewish ones, have to understand and accept the same type of uniqueness.

    If this is not taught then both the US and Israel are headed for a very bleak future.

    You see if one is taught values then the person will seek to retain and protect it and by extension the country.

    I fought a long hard campaign for 3 months in Lebanon with Arik [God bless him] over twenty years ago. It was tough but we all understood the reason – not political, but what Israel was and why we had to.

    Israel and America’s enemies understand this and do this – the problem and concern is that 21st century children prefer Athenian comfort and have values that do not allow them to understand who they are.

    Just look at all the Israelis that travel to India for some sort of spiritual nonsense.

  3. Sol on Tue, Oct 7th 2008 7:09 AM

    4. As “Israeli” as your kids and their friends are you cannot compare them with the typical secular American Jewish teenager. My guess is that 85-90% of Ilana and Noa’s Jewish friends in high-school will not know it is sukkot next week. It’s not that they don’t celebrate sukkot they simply do not know it is sukkot. The mere fact your kids live in the framework of a Jewish calander and speak Hebrew already puts them in a different category. I know there are many disappointing aspects to how Israeli culture has evolved but believe me the situation here is “al hapanim”

  4. David on Tue, Oct 7th 2008 6:06 PM

    5. Right, but that’s my point. If my kids know it’s Sukkot, but only treat it as a holiday from school and a chance to go out at night and sleep late, then what difference does it make to not being aware of it.
    Of course, they’ll eat in a succa. so that’s something.

  5. Larry W in Los Angeles on Tue, Oct 7th 2008 9:57 PM

    6. It’s not just the religious understanding or practice that is missing, it is the fact that since 1948 Israel society, focused on creating a safe modern home for a people exiled for 2000 years and nearly exterminated in WWII, never really bothered to teach Israelis the narrative of the Jewish people. As we have seen in the Diaspora, one can really be “Jewish” without davening everyday, but you have to know, identify with and be part of this larger story. It seems to me that Jews born in Israel haven’t been infused with this… probably because at the birth of the nation they were forced to choose between a theocracy or a highly secular society. It is truly a loss.

  6. lirun on Thu, Oct 9th 2008 8:18 PM

    7. i stuffed up my first comment but ill make it clearer this time around.. i think its a bit naive that you can consider the israeli identity to be synonymous with a jewish identity to any extent.. given the plethora of “other” that live amongst us in such vast numbers..

    as a dweller of yaffo which while mostly jewish does contain a bunch of non jews – i cringe at the thought of their sense of nationality – which must be habitually hurt by people who feel the way you do – as understandable and romantic as it may seem..

  7. Nicky on Sun, Oct 12th 2008 8:21 AM

    8. Lirun has a point. To be Israeli must by necessity mean something more than being Jewish, or else how will the one million Arabs and other non-Jews living in the country find a place for themselves here.

  8. Narendra Shivaswamy on Sun, Oct 12th 2008 3:41 PM

    9. Mr David Joe seems to be surprised at the number of Israilies coming to india for som”nonsense spirituality”. I am a hindu brahmin. People come here to
    seek reaffarmation of their religious and personal beliefs. I know jews feel that
    you follow a old religion but trust me we go just back and beyond. You don’t come to India and become a hindu.You are born as a hindu brahmin cannot be converted to one.We only get your value systems and unclog your thinking
    system.There is noyhing nonsense about our spirituality. Come to INDIA we will
    send a better JEW to ISRAEL

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